Unternavigationspunkte

Unternavigationspunkte

Unternavigationspunkte

Unternavigationspunkte

Cen­tral Agen­cy for Ger­man Schools Abroad (ZfA)

The Cen­tral Agen­cy for Ger­man Schools Abroad (Zen­tral­stelle für das Aus­landss­chul­we­sen, ZfA) of the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Ad­min­is­tra­tion sup­ports over 1,200 schools world­wide, in­clud­ing 140 Ger­man schools abroad – main­ly in pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship – and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,100 schools in the re­spec­tive ed­u­ca­tion­al sys­tem in which the Ger­man Lan­guage Cer­tifi­cate (DSD) can be ac­quired. On be­half of the Fed­er­al For­eign Of­fice and in close co­op­er­a­tion with the fed­er­al states, the ZfA pro­vides them with per­son­nel, fi­nan­cial and ped­a­gog­i­cal as­sis­tance. The ZfA, which was es­tab­lished at the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Ad­min­is­tra­tion in 1968, re­ports to the Fed­er­al For­eign Of­fice.

Ger­man schools abroad, most­ly con­ceived as in­ter­na­tion­al schools, are open not on­ly to chil­dren of Ger­mans work­ing abroad and wish­ing Ger­man ed­u­ca­tion for their kids. Three out of four pupils are from the re­spec­tive host coun­tries or oth­er cul­tures, thus get­ting the chance to fa­mil­iar­ize them­selves with Ger­many, its cul­ture, and lan­guage. These high-pro­file in­sti­tu­tions of the Ger­man school sys­tem are very pop­u­lar world­wide and con­sti­tute an im­por­tant pil­lar of cul­tur­al re­la­tions and ed­u­ca­tion pol­i­cy.

The ZfA is re­spon­si­ble for the place­ment, fi­nan­cial sup­port, prepa­ra­tion, and fur­ther ed­u­ca­tion of teach­ers. About 2,000 teach­ers placed by the ZfA are em­ployed at Ger­man schools all over the world.

ZfA news from abroad

The Ger­man lan­guage re­mains pop­u­lar. As the ‘Deutsch als Fremd­sprache weltweit’ (Ger­man as a for­eign lan­guage world­wide) sur­vey shows, the in­ter­est in learn­ing Ger­man is in­creas­ing in par­tic­u­lar in Chi­na, In­dia and Brazil. In some Asian re­gions de­mand has mul­ti­plied since 2010. In Eu­rope, fig­ures have re­mained large­ly con­stant with­in the last years. A to­tal of 15.4 mil­lion peo­ple are cur­rent­ly learn­ing Ger­man world­wide. This sur­vey is car­ried out by the Fed­er­al For­eign Of­fice in co­op­er­a­tion with the Goethe In­sti­tute, the Ger­man Aca­dem­ic Ex­change Ser­vice (DAAD) and the Cen­tral Agen­cy for Schools Abroad (ZfA) ev­ery five years.

On 7 March 2015, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 350 guests, in­clud­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of par­ents, pupils and part­ner in­sti­tu­tions, teach­ers and staff, for­mer school board mem­bers, head­mas­ters and pupils, came to­geth­er to cel­e­brate the 50th an­niver­sary of the Ger­man School Rio de Janeiro - Es­co­la Alemã Cor­co­v­a­do.